Washington (CNN) – Florida Sen. Marco Rubio attempted to walk the line between science and faith-based creationism in remarks that that have provoked the ire of liberal blogs, leaving the door open to creationism in responding to a recent question about the age of the Earth.

When GQ’s Michal Hainey asked Rubio, in an interview released Monday, “How old do you think the Earth is,” the rising Republican star described the debate about the planet’s age as “one of the great mysteries.”

“I'm not a scientist, man,” Rubio told the interviewer. “I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that's a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States.”

“Whether the Earth was created in seven days, or seven actual eras,” Rubio continued, “I'm not sure we'll ever be able to answer that. It's one of the great mysteries.”

Most scientists agree that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old and the universe is 14.5 billion years old. Christian Young Earth Creationists, on the other hand, argue that the weeklong account of God creating the Earth and everything in it represents six 24-hour periods (plus one day of rest) and date the age of the Earth between 6,000 and 10,000 years.

Left-leaning blogs and sites like ThinkProgress and Huffington Post jumped on Rubio’s comments, with the Zack Beauchamp from ThingProgress writing, “To suggest we can’t know how old the Earth is, then, is to deny the validity of these scientific methods altogether — a maneuver familiar to Rubio, who also denies the reality of anthropogenic climate change.”

Rubio is regarded as a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2016, though the senator says his visit last week to Iowa, home of the first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses, had “nothing to do with 2016.”

His response to GQ’s age of the Earth query has also provoked questions about his political aspirations. Dave Weigel of Slate writes, “How can you read that and not think ‘Iowa’? ” The state is the first to hold a presidential caucus in 2016.

Forty-six percent of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form at one point within the past 10,000 years, according to a survey released by Gallup in June. That number has remained unchanged for the past 30 years, since 1982, when Gallup first asked the question on creationism versus evolution.

The second most common view is that humans evolved with God's guidance - a view held by 32% of respondents. The view that humans evolved with no guidance from God was held by 15% of respondents.

The Gallup poll has not specifically asked about views on the age of the Earth.

Rubio attends a Baptist church in southern Florida but also considers himself “a practicing Catholic.”

He was born Catholic, but his family converted to Mormonism when Rubio was 8 years old, according to Rubio’s recent memoir. The family left its LDS faith behind when it moved from Nevada back to Florida and Rubio was confirmed in the Catholic Church.

Catholic teaching is that science and faith are not at odds with one another and it is possible to believe what scientists say about the Earth’s age and in God. But many evangelical churches, including Baptist ones, promote a version of creationism.

When CNN reached out to Rubio’s Baptist church in Florida on Monday, a person answering the phone would not comment on its teachings about the Earth’s age and said that a church representative was unlikely to be available in the near term.

During the GQ interview, Rubio argued that “there are multiple theories out there on how the universe was created and I think this is a country where people should have the opportunity to teach them all.”

For the past 30 years, the “equal-time argument” –- the idea that Creationism taught alongside evolution -– has been popular method for Creationists to advance their cause. In the late 1980s, some state legislatures passed bills that promoted the idea of a balanced treatment of both ideas in the classroom.

In 1987, the issue made it all the way to the Supreme Court, where a Louisiana "equal-time law" was struck down. The court ruled that teaching creationism in public school classrooms was a violation of the Establishment Cause in the Constitution, which is commonly referred to as the separation of church and state.

soundoff(6,211 Responses)

Scott

"I'm not sure we'll ever be able to answer that. It's one of the great mysteries.” Give me a break. It's only a mystery to people who are in denial over the facts. Creationists are impossible for this very reason. They know they don't have a leg to stand on, so they will often settle for trying giving their own absurd theory equal standing to the well-known scientific facts. They're so transparently deceitful. Shame on CNN for legitimizing this pathetic, irresponsible movement.

November 25, 2012 at 7:31 am |

lol??

Christians are accused of using shame all the time. Now you, too, are using it? The more things change.........

November 25, 2012 at 7:46 am |

lol??

The fundie Evolutionism Priests are lookin' for more funding. Their foot soldiers on CNN's belief section are doin' the dirty work of tryin' to destroy Christians who might object to that slavery. It's too late though, for voluntary contributions. The Beast is broke, actually worse than broke. Welcome to slavery in the name of liberty! ....."Pro 22:7 The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower [is] servant to the lender."

November 25, 2012 at 7:14 am |

Blessed are the Cheesemakers

Well at least you use "preist" as a derogatory term.

November 25, 2012 at 11:26 am |

Blessed are the Cheesemakers

"The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of Hell." St. Augustine

Its nice to see people using their science books, and Pedro its nice to see you've read some science as well as religious books, I would just like to say that no one has actually figured out how the first cell came into existence billions of years ago.

Now to you Pedro, god was created by man not the other way around. The fictions of those who sought to control others and nothing more. The beauty of this plan is it still working a couple of thousand years and people are still writing there own vision and getting others to follow.

Don't take any wooden nickels.

November 25, 2012 at 3:15 am |

Thomas

the 1st cells didnt suddenly appear from nothing . if you disolve a mixture of carbon dioxide, sulther dioxide and ammonia all of which occur naturally in water and then run a high voltahe electric current through it ( i.e lightning) amino acids and nucleic acids will spontaneously form and breakdown as the chemicals react. If the right 2 nucleic acid molecules colide in the right way they will react and bond together forming a more stable arrangement. The shortest chain of nucleic acids capable of replicating itself consists of only 6 molecules.

it is there for very easy to expect that 3.5-4 billion years ago there were pools of water full of self replicating nucleic acids. To get from there to the simplest cell all you need is the combination of a 15-17C oil molecule and an amino acid, in water they spontaneously form a sphere since the oil part is hyrophobic and the amino acid is hydrophyllic. Put both compounds in the same pool and at some point and oil sphere will encompass a nucleic acid strand.

Remember it took billions of years to go from the formation and cooling of the planet to the 1st cells being formed. considering the environment of earth and the compounds present in our atmosphere at the time it is almost statistically impossible that such cells wouldnt have formed

November 25, 2012 at 3:32 am |

lol??

mimi, you talk like gaga. Don't use any wooden tampons.

November 25, 2012 at 5:35 am |

lol??

The water came from where?

November 25, 2012 at 6:04 am |

mama k

@loll?? I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure you have a little better imagination than you display here with the pathetic innuendo and attempts to distract from the reality of our current knowledge.

The fossil record does not show macroevolutionary changes. The fossil record shows us that all the major groups of animals appeared suddenly and remained virtually unchanged. Sadly atheistic scientist let their personal belief influence their interpretations

November 25, 2012 at 12:40 am |

Athy

Not true, Pedro. Do some reading.

November 25, 2012 at 1:24 am |

Leif

The fossil record shows nothing of the sort. Just because you received a lousy education does not mean that the rest of us have, nor does it mean that we should subject others to the ignorance you so proudly proclaim in yourself.

November 25, 2012 at 4:10 am |

lol??

The fossil record shows fossils. The rest is story tellin'.

November 25, 2012 at 6:07 am |

mama k

@loll?? It is obvious you continue to avoid current knowledge, but I hope you realize how obvious your uneducated generalizations and attempted distractions are to someone with a spec of rationalization.

November 25, 2012 at 10:18 am |

tony

Religion caused the evolution of the outstretched hand into the separate species of the "collection bowl". They clearly breed amongst themselves, as they now outnumber churches by a huge multiplication factor.

Natural selection has not led to the creation of new species. Darwin's finches show that a species can adapt to changing climates and that's it. Darwin's finches are not becoming anything new, they are still finches. The different "species" of finches are interbreeding

Darwin's finches and their adaptation to their environment, is exactly what evolution asserts. Since you agree that organisms that don't adapt, die off, and that those that do adapt live on, then you happen to accept evolution in the same way that all the rest of us do.

Congratulations! You're making progress.

November 24, 2012 at 7:56 pm |

Gadflie

Pedro, if I could show you every evolutionary single step between two species (species defined by the strictest scientific definition, they do not interbreed), steps verifiable by any means you deem adequate, would you then admit that speciation happens because of evolution? If not, why not?

Darwin's finches whereby they did interbreed did come op with many variabilities regarding their beaks which was a marvelous underpinning for them! They needed different ways and means for which to feed upon the far too few variations of food sources on the islands. Seems to me that the finches arbiters within or inside them saw a need to change their embodiments potential for getting food! In all celestial life are many gods and goddesses! 1Corinthians 3:9 "For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, [ye are] God's building!"

November 24, 2012 at 8:11 pm |

Athy

Pedro,
A new species is formed when the parent species is split into two groups. This can happen any number of ways. A glacier cuts a new canyon, a river orms o separate hem, apart of them migrate some where lse nd don't come back. Use a little imagination here, my friend. Anyway, each group is then on its wn to evolve separately on its own to adapt to thei own, now different, environment. Eventually they reach the point where they can no longer mate, at this point tthey are different specis

November 24, 2012 at 8:12 pm |

Athy

Damn. Accidentally hit post before I could proof it. Anyway, I hope you get the idea.

November 24, 2012 at 8:15 pm |

Leif

Since mammals didn't exist earlier than about 210 million years ago, clearly new species have arisen.

Mutations cannot cause one species to evolve into a completely new kind of creature.

November 24, 2012 at 7:23 pm |

Moby Schtick

You're not even making sense. A "species" never evolves into a new "creature." That would be stupid. Some genes mutate, and sometimes that difference is reproduced in the next iteration, but usually it isn't. Whenever a mutated gene is preserved in the next iteration, sometimes it makes a difference for the organism, but mostly it doesn't. You're jumping so many steps that you're not even arguing anything relevant to anything even somewhat remotely connected to "evolution." Basically, you're just writing in big block letters "I iz irgnorant an sech" on a big sign and waving it around.

November 24, 2012 at 7:31 pm |

Chad

@Moby "ome genes mutate, and sometimes that difference is reproduced in the next iteration, but usually it isn't. Whenever a mutated gene is preserved in the next iteration, sometimes it makes a difference for the organism, but mostly it doesn't. "

=>boy, good luck reconciling that with the fossil record which shows punctuated equilibrium: stasis for millions of years followed by a grand paroxysm of neccessarily interdependant mutations in a short period of time.

As you have emphasized by your comment, mutations create gradual changes in organisms. And over millions of years those gradual changes accumulate until finally, the organism is different enough that it can be categorized as a new species.

November 24, 2012 at 7:50 pm |

Chad

@EnjaySea "As you have emphasized by your comment, mutations create gradual changes in organisms. And over millions of years those gradual changes accu mulate until finally, the organism is different enough that it can be categorized as a new species."

=>Sounds good.
But, there is a serious problem… The fossil record simply doesn’t support it.
what you are describing is known as "phyletic gradualism", it's what Darwin proposed, and it has been utterly and completely refuted by the fossil record.

Punctuated equilibrium is commonly contrasted against the theory of phyletic gradualism, which states that evolution generally occurs uniformly and by the steady and gradual transformation of whole lineages (called anagenesis). In this view, evolution is seen as generally smooth and continuous. In 1972, paleontologists Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould published a landmark paper developing this theory and called it punctuated equilibria.[2] Their paper built upon Ernst Mayr's theory of geographic speciation,[3] I. Michael Lerner's theories of developmental and genetic homeostasis,[4] as well as their own empirical research.[5][6] Eldredge and Gould proposed that the degree of gradualism commonly attributed to Charles Darwin is virtually nonexistent in the fossil record, and that stasis dominates the history of most fossil species.

November 24, 2012 at 8:00 pm |

Moby Schtick

@Chad

Genetic mutations don't work the way you'd like them to be most convenient for understanding evolution (to the naked eye/common sense). Genetic mutations build up and don't seem to cause that much change in human understanding and on the human timescale but they exactly and precisely lead to what we see and define as "punctuated equilibrium." Again, something you a ssume pokes holes in the theory of evolution actually helps us understand and define evolution.

November 24, 2012 at 8:11 pm |

EnjaySea

Fair enough, Chad. Then if his conclusions are correct, there were long periods of stability and short periods of increased change. But he makes the point that this only modifies what Darwin proposed, and he also argues against creationism.

Did we all think that Darwin's original ideas would not later be expanded and enhanced with further understanding? No of course not. Does Gould thing that evolution didn't occur? Of course not. Does every evolutionary biologist agree with Gould? Absolutely not.

Along with many other researchers in the field, Gould's works were sometimes deliberately taken out of context by creationists as "proof" that scientists no longer understood how organisms evolved. Gould himself corrected some of these misinterpretations and distortions of his writings in later works.

Chad, do yourself the disfavor of continuing to argue the stupidity that you do that does more harm to your position and the position of creationists than it does to the theory of evolution that you claim to be against.

Once again, I am forced to conclude that you are an atheist putting forth poor arguments for god and creationism that diminish the power and authority of those silly positions. Good job!

November 24, 2012 at 8:20 pm |

Moby Schtick

@Chad

I don't care about what you or any atheist pretending to be a god believer thinks is or is not "reconciliation." I care about honesty. The honest answer is "We don't know." The feel-good, mythological answer is "Invisible sky wizard by the name of __________ did it with magic spellz." Choose honesty or mythology for whatever "reconciliation" you seem to desire.

November 24, 2012 at 8:32 pm |

Chad

your video(apparently done by some high school kid) is self refuting, it's premise is that
– mutations exist in a population,
– drastic environmental change dramatically favors one set of mutations
– this natural selection is then what results in "rapid change"

It's off the mark at every step (which I guess is why allopatric speciation remains the ONLY theory on how punctuated equilibrium occurs):
– it requires that a mutation be present in the population and not get weeded out, which is not what is seen at all (gene pools wobble about the genetic mean for long periods of time).
– It requires that all hosts with this mutation that will be favorable, NOT get fossilized, as that would show that both species lived at the same time

November 24, 2012 at 8:33 pm |

Moby Schtick

@Chad

Haha!! I see what you're doing!! LOL!! You're lying about what the video states to show what a real god believer/creationist would say about it!! Nice one. Keep up the great work. I look forward to your upcoming posts that show how the average christard lies about evidence and the scientific process and principles.

November 24, 2012 at 8:39 pm |

Chad

ah, you havent watched the video??

you just did a quick "PE refuted" google and put the result in.. never watched it :-)

watch it from 2:00 on.. you'll see what I'm saying is 100% accurate

November 24, 2012 at 8:42 pm |

Moby Schtick

Chad, not only have I watched the video, but I understand what punctuated equilibrium "is" and how it fits in perfectly with our current understanding of the evolutionary process. However, I really think it's great what you're doing to show the stupidity of the creationist's position by arguing otherwise, so again I thank you for your work. Hopefully people who are actually interested in PE and how it fits in with the evolutionary model will do their own research. And, hopefully people who actually want to "prove evolution wrong" by studying PE and its contributing process will help further define our understanding of evolution to make it even more accurate and comprehensive than it is today. Just think how exciting it would be for some enterprising new scientist to help refine the evolutionary model significantly by working on PE and showing some new fascinating facet of the theory!! That would be soooo cool!!

I watched a few of the videos you posted here and was enthrawled by what was said in some of them! Go Amsterdam and down the tubes with fox and their gawd awful lies!

November 24, 2012 at 9:15 pm |

Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son

So now Chad's little Rolodex of possible topics has landed on evolution and "punctuated equilibrium," yet again.

*yawn* Anyone want to put a bet on the next topic about which the Vegetable will attempt to argue?

November 24, 2012 at 10:50 pm |

Chad

so, if you watched the video, you now understand that what I said was correct..

your video(apparently done by some high school kid) is self refuting, it's premise is that
– mutations exist in a population,
– drastic environmental change dramatically favors one set of mutations
– this natural selection is then what results in "rapid change"

It's off the mark at every step (which I guess is why allopatric speciation remains the ONLY theory on how punctuated equilibrium occurs):
– it requires that a mutation be present in the population and not get weeded out, which is not what is seen at all (gene pools wobble about the genetic mean for long periods of time).
– It requires that all hosts with this mutation that will be favorable, NOT get fossilized, as that would show that both species lived at the same time

November 24, 2012 at 11:13 pm |

Tom, Tom, the Other One

Chad, there are little experiments you can try at home. The Baker's Transformation is one that will give you a feel for what actually drives PE and things like it in other information systems.

November 24, 2012 at 11:22 pm |

Hamm

Pedro
It's change through a series of mutations, like how an individual changes appearance over time. There is no "presto" new species. That's magical thinking found within mythology.

November 25, 2012 at 12:26 am |

Chad

Pedro, FYI, you couldnt be more incorrect...

Punctuated equilibrium is commonly contrasted against the theory of phyletic gradualism, which states that evolution generally occurs uniformly and by the steady and gradual transformation of whole lineages (called anagenesis). In this view, evolution is seen as generally smooth and continuous. In 1972, paleontologists Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould published a landmark paper developing this theory and called it punctuated equilibria.[2] Their paper built upon Ernst Mayr's theory of geographic speciation,[3] I. Michael Lerner's theories of developmental and genetic homeostasis,[4] as well as their own empirical research.[5][6] Eldredge and Gould proposed that the degree of gradualism commonly attributed to Charles Darwin is virtually nonexistent in the fossil record, and that stasis dominates the history of most fossil species.

'Your just writing in big block letters on a sign and waving it around' your right and that's exactly what the new atheist do in front of courts and on billboards to try and force their cult and 'faith' on people. When I expose your faith as a myth and a fraud you get upset. Life is not a product of blind chance. There is no foundation to support evolution because no explanation is given for the origin of life

November 25, 2012 at 1:04 am |

John

Chad
Again with the punctuated equilibrium argument? What is this, your 100th try to make some kind of point with this? Gould even said that it didn't hurt the theory.

November 25, 2012 at 1:05 am |

mama k

Pedro – " There is no foundation to support evolution because no explanation is given for the origin of life"

Well that's ridiculous. Just because we don't have answers to something that occurred further back doesn't mean things we've learned about more recent developments are not true.

November 25, 2012 at 1:15 am |

End Religion

You got a tough future ahead of you, Pedro. We know you preferred the time when atheists knew their place, but you can't re-cork the evolution bottle. Your religion is dying, and oh how you kick and scream as it dies! Can't you feel it all slipping away? Even the Pope is admitting the fraud of the bible story now. We have been trying to prepare you for the end of the delusion.

Who is saying that any simple cells evolved by chance? You seem to have a poor understanding of what evolution is.

November 24, 2012 at 7:26 pm |

EnjaySea

Then what you're saying Pedro is that complexity requires design. Or do I have that wrong?

So if that's the case, then your god would necessarily have to be immensely more complex than the universe that he created. And by your same logic, he therefore cannot possibly exist, because a creature as complex as a god, would have to have been designed.

November 24, 2012 at 7:53 pm |

Cal

The first cells could have been much simpler than even today's simplest cells. Evolution would have been working to make modern cells more complex. The original life cells could have easily been simple enough to have spontaneously developed.

November 25, 2012 at 12:34 am |

Thomas

the 1st cells didnt suddenly appear from . if you disolve a mixture of carbon dioxide, sulther dioxide and ammonia all of which occur naturally in water and then run a high voltahe electric current through it ( i.e lightning) amino acids and nucleic acids will spontaneously form and breakdown as the chemicals react. If the right 2 nucleic acid molecules colide in the right way they will react and bond together forming a more stable arrangement. The shortest chain of nucleic acids capable of replicating itself consists of only 6 molecules.

it is there for very easy to expect that 3.5-4 billion years ago there were pools of water full of self replicating nucleic acids. To get from there to the simplest cell all you need is the combination of a 15-17C oil molecule and an amino acid, in water they spontaneously form a sphere since the oil part is hyrophobic and the amino acid is hydrophyllic. Put both compounds in the same pool and at some point and oil sphere will encompass a nucleic acid strand.

Remember it took billions of years to go from the formation and cooling of the planet to the 1st cells being formed. considering the environment of earth and the compounds present in our atmosphere at the time it is almost statistically impossilbe that such cells wouldnt have formed

November 25, 2012 at 2:14 am |

Leif

Since God must be the most complex thing in the universe, he can't have arisen by chance. WHO created God?

All scientific research shows us that life CANNOT spring from no living matter

November 24, 2012 at 7:13 pm |

EnjaySea

Oh, I didn't realize that. So that means that it's also impossible for a god to have created life, because it would have had to have created life from nothing right?

Thanks for keeping us informed.

November 24, 2012 at 7:15 pm |

Milton Platt

I am incredulous that you have just implied that you have studied the entire sum of all scientific works concerning the theory of evolution. That would be a monumental (dare I say impossible) feat.

I am looking forward to a list of quotes from scientific literature to support your case.

November 24, 2012 at 9:32 pm |

Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son

Pedro, if you were as knowledgeable as you imagine yourself to be, you'd be somewhere else on a Saturday night.

November 24, 2012 at 10:46 pm |

Cal

Modern life, maybe, but not original, primitive forms.

November 25, 2012 at 12:36 am |

Leif

Pure bs. You cannot provide a single reputable source to back up that patently false claim.

November 25, 2012 at 4:18 am |

Atheism is not healthy for children and other living things

Prayer changes things .

November 24, 2012 at 7:11 pm |

hal 9001

I'm sorry, "Atheism is not healthy for children and other living things", but your assertions regarding atheism and prayer are unfounded. Using my Idiomatic Expression Equivalency module (IEE), the expression that best matches the degree to which your assertions may represent truths is: "TOTAL FAIL".

I see that you repeat these unfounded statements with high frequency. Perhaps the following book can help you:

I'm Told I Have Dementia: What You Can Do... Who You Can Turn to...

November 24, 2012 at 7:12 pm |

Blessed are the Cheesemakers

prayer made me an apostate.

November 24, 2012 at 7:56 pm |

Milton Platt

Yes, it does. It wastes the time of the person praying when he could be doing material good for himself or others.

Antony Flew an ex-atheist had finally arrived at the right conclusion in 2004 when he became convinced that the universe, the laws of nature, and life itself could not have arisen by chance

November 24, 2012 at 7:04 pm |

Moby Schtick

1. Saying that the universe is "not here by chance" does not mean the same thing as "bible god did it" or any other god or consciousness or ent ity.

2. I don't know any atheists who say that the universe is here or runs on "chance." Most atheists believe that the universe is "structured and orderly" but just don't have any certain god belief. God believers don't own the rights to an orderly, structured universe.

To say that inner cosmological orders are of a transdimensionable reasoning and outer cosmological orders are dependent upon the laws of inner cosmologies transdimensional referencing is too much to ration rationally isn't it?

November 24, 2012 at 7:52 pm |

Chad

@Moby Schtick "Saying that the universe is "not here by chance" does not mean the same thing as "bible god did it" or any other god or consciousness or ent ity."
@Chad "er...
yes it is..
If you dont believe that the universe is here by chance, then you believe it is here by design.

=======
@moby "I don't know any atheists who say that the universe is here or runs on "chance." Most atheists believe that the universe is "structured and orderly" but just don't have any certain god belief. God believers don't own the rights to an orderly, structured universe."
@Chad "er...
yes it is
If you dont believe that the universe is the way it is by pure chance, then you believe in design.

If you dont believe in God, how did the universe get "structured and orderly"?

I dont think there is any such thing as an anthropic atheist, lol
you seem confused again moby :-)

November 24, 2012 at 7:56 pm |

Moby Schtick

@Chad

Thank you, atheist sir, for doing such an excellent job of showing how stupid are the creationist and believer arguments and positions! I appreciate your work.

We do not know why the universe seems orderly or why it is here, and we do not claim to know. It is a mystery. We do not know the answer to mysteries and that's why they are called mysteries.

Our minds seek to find order because order causes accurate prediction which leads to longer and more successful survival.

We do not know if the universe is or is not designed, but we do know that the best way to understand the "design" of the universe is to study it unbiasedly and make the most accurate models that fit reality in the most precise ways that cause the best predictions--in a word, science. Saying "big invisible sky wizard with Hebrew flavoring" does nothing to help our scientific experiments give us any better results any faster.

Again, the honest reply is "We don't know..... it's a mystery"
Again, the best tool to apply to the mystery is science.
Again, "big invisible sky wizard did it with magic spellz" is mythology.

Again, thank you for showing the absolute stupidity of the god believer's position. It's appreciated.

November 24, 2012 at 8:29 pm |

Chad

so, you believe the universe does not operate by chance, and that it is structured and orderly?

November 24, 2012 at 8:49 pm |

mama k

Chad: "so, you believe the universe does not operate by chance, and that it is structured and orderly?"

Chad – I guess you need to reread Moby's post, because it looks like you missed the point. Moby did not suggest a belief.

November 24, 2012 at 8:56 pm |

Damocles

Structure does not equal a deity. It's an incredible jump from an external agent being the cause of the universe to the agent just happening to be the deity you worship. It's ridiculous to say matter can't have existed eternally yet say that your deity needs no beginning.

November 24, 2012 at 9:00 pm |

Moby Schtick

@Chad

The universe appears structured and orderly, but I recognize that my brain is extremely, extremely, extremely limited and that it evolved to search for structure and order so perhaps that appearance is more about my brain's structure and order than the universe's apparent structure and order. To me, all existence seems to have it's counterpart in the simple fungus and/or tree and it seems to be all interconnected and self-referential (fractal). But there is nothing in the universe that points to any of the gods of ancient myth as anything other than the desire for self-acknowledgement within a narrative structure. Myth is narrative; "god" is the unknown from which arises that which we know; we are the hero of our own story. Stories are important, but they have their place within a larger whole. God belief is really just pride and the desire to be more than we are and to know more than we can.

November 24, 2012 at 9:00 pm |

Moby Schtick

@mama k & damocles

I do not think that Chad is a bona fide god believer but rather a "poe" atheist who seeks to refine both sides of the argument by providing contention; however, his post represents that ignorant mentality that defines all "order" as "godliness." In other words, for the christard, there are only two possibilities: 1 chaotic, nonsensical, hellish "thingness" of "nothingness" or 2 good, perfect, godly-designed structure and order. Either pure black, nothing, godlessness; or pure white, static perfection, godness. No color or shadings; how sad.

November 24, 2012 at 9:10 pm |

mama k

Thanks, Moby – I'm not sure if it was from you, but I've heard that theory before.

November 24, 2012 at 9:16 pm |

Damocles

@moby

I've seen that before as well.

November 24, 2012 at 9:22 pm |

Tom, Tom, the Other One

I'm not sure if Chad is ready to be outed as being without God. But his God has strangely few properties (that he's willing to share). I think Chad is trying to establish that it is a necessary being, but he never goes much beyond that. His whole purpose may be to defend his NIV bible as Truth. Not because it is, but because he thinks he can.

What about you, Pedro? What of your God? Does it speak to you? Do you converse with it? Does it tell you that it loves you and that you're a special creation billions of years in the making?

November 24, 2012 at 9:23 pm |

Moby Schtick

Tom, Tom,

I think you're correct about chad's god. dunno. The problem of mystery is very interesting, for sure. Maybe the answers are just to far beyond our ability to reason with them. Maybe the answers are all around us, everywhere. It's tempting to say that existence exists because of some higher intelligence, but then that leads to the problem of where that intelligence came from and then infinite regression regardless of the 'god' or mechanism considered. I have seen one 3-d, moving model that showed how the universe might be a fluid, self-contained structure that continually rerepresents itself along every possibility and impossibility in perfect balance. Lately, I have been thinking much about the duality between 0 and 1 and the infinity of possibilities between those two "states." Can "nothingness" exist? It doesn't seem like it can. Can a perfect unity exist? It would seem like if it did, it would be meaningless in its "sameness." Could our concept of the "big bang" expansion of the singularity just be the expression of that meaningless, sameness "reaching out" to again explore the infinite possibilities between zero and one?

November 24, 2012 at 9:33 pm |

Damocles

Does the universe drive us or is it driven by us? You do realise what exists between 0 and 1 don't you? Eternity. Perfection can only exist if it does not require a consensus, but if it doesn't, then how would we know it's perfect?

November 24, 2012 at 9:41 pm |

Moby Schtick

Right. The concepts get too large to grapple with very "quickly." Might it be the mystery that drives the perfect whole? What if the perfect 1 relies upon the infinite possibilities (and all states of matter and consciousness within those possibilities) in order to know itself incompletely-yet-completely all at the same time but from different perspectives? Anytime a near-perfect model is "achieved" by any method whatsoever, it "realizes" the futility of perfect stasis and rather expands to rediscover the infinite possibilities in a "big bang inflation." It makes my head hurt, for sure. :)

November 24, 2012 at 9:53 pm |

Damocles

Perfection would be incredibly difficult to achieve on a small scale... a perfect apple, for instance.... when you toss in the possibility of an infinite perfection on all planes, that would be something to pat yourself on the back about.

Would it expand to reach perfection or contract? As one got smaller, perfection might be easier to achieve.

November 24, 2012 at 10:01 pm |

Tom, Tom, the Other One

You've been touched by the God of Israel :-)

November 24, 2012 at 10:02 pm |

Tom, Tom, the Other One

Perfection requires pure crystalline Substance at absolute zero. Not just any pure crystalline substance will do.

November 24, 2012 at 10:06 pm |

Damocles

@the other one

Are we talking the crystalline substance that is chopped on mirrors?

November 24, 2012 at 10:10 pm |

Tom, Tom, the Other One

No, but the one that turns purplish when exposed to air (hence the song) may come close.

November 24, 2012 at 10:15 pm |

Moby Schtick

I would think that perfection has its own shape and space. Perfection would be neither "tiny" nor "massive" but a geometry that perfectly expresses the tiniest of the tiniest tiny and the massiveness of the most massive massiveness and that is beyond our comprehension. And at this point we are really talking about singularities and mathematical daemons that produce infinite volumes within finite areas or finite volumes within infinite areas. And as I've said, I think that when reality seems to produce something close to that, the singularity expands outward in a sort of "big bang" mechanism like the one that produced our universe.

November 24, 2012 at 10:21 pm |

Moby Schtick

I'm ignorant of the crystal that turns purple. What about DMT?

November 24, 2012 at 10:24 pm |

Damocles

So the inanimate tries to achieve a perfection it has no way of perceiving?

November 24, 2012 at 10:25 pm |

Moby Schtick

Maybe. :)

Here's the real doozy: What if god's trick is in that he both exists and does not exist? The zero and the one.

November 24, 2012 at 10:35 pm |

Tom, Tom, the Other One

Perfection is unchanging (umm... Aquinas, Kierkegaard). Can something that is unchanging perceive anything? A DMT flash?

November 24, 2012 at 10:38 pm |

Moby Schtick

Correct, Tom, which is why at the moment when perfection would occur, it "reaches out" to explore the infinite possibilities again--so there is never "nothing" and there is never "perfection." There is never zero, and there is never one. There is only infinity between nothingness and perfection.

November 24, 2012 at 10:41 pm |

Damocles

An infinite anything would leave no room for anything else. Deities exist in a fashion because they are talked about. If 1 deity is true, are all true?

Perfection still requires a consensus. If one person finds a flaw in a supposedly perfect thing, it is not perfect, obviously. Now, do we extend this perfection finding ability to animals? Say all humans are in agreement that something is perfect yet a dog shies away from a funny smell it gives off. Is it still perfect because animals don't count?

November 24, 2012 at 10:44 pm |

Chad

If you believe that the universe does not operate by chance, and that the universe is "structured and orderly", then you need to get familiar with anthropic principle and it's as.sociation with theism.

The notion that the universe is utterly, entirely, 100% governed by chance is central to atheism. There simply is no other option available to them. It's pure chance, or design. God believers do in fact "own the rights" to an orderly, structured universe that is not governed by chance.

November 24, 2012 at 11:28 pm |

mama k

I think this last post at least is from one of these "poe" Chads. He's making no sense now.

November 24, 2012 at 11:34 pm |

End Religion

It is not randomness and it is not intelligent design.

November 24, 2012 at 11:38 pm |

Chad

not making sense .. lol :-)

Here is the fine tuning argument and it's relation to theism:

In cosmology, fine tuning refers to the precise balance of cosmological constants that allow the observable universe to exist as it does. These constants include the speed of light, the rate of expansion of the universe, the force of gravity, the nuclear strong force, the electromagnetic force, and many other parameters of the observable universe. It is claimed that these constants exist in such a state of precise equilibrium that any variation to their values would have resulted in a drastically different universe. The fine tuning argument states that these values occurring in such a precise state by mere chance is highly improbable, and that there must have been a creator to fine tune these values in order for our universe to exist as it does and for life to exist on Earth. This argument is the same as the anthropic theistic principle.

Hmm... chance. Suppose everything that is possible happens. In this part of all that, time is time-like and there is enough order for you to exist and experience that order. Nothing special about that. It happens in infinitely many ways, but in each way it happens there is something Chad-like that supposes that the order is by design. No, it is simply privileged to be where it is possible to be Chad-like. Well, not so much a place: one of the infinitely many ways it is possible.

November 24, 2012 at 11:45 pm |

mama k

Chad – this fine tuning argument you keep bringing up is still just theory. So it in no way proves intelligent design. Regardless of who signs onto the idea, atheist or theist, it is still like a type of apologetics – trying to make us seem special and singled out in the universe. We have no idea that there might be other types of life in other parts of the universe or through a black hole into another universe that have very different narrow constrictions for environment that this argument says is prime for us. I note that physicist Paul Davies has asserted that "There is now broad agreement among physicists and cosmologists that the Universe is in several respects ‘fine-tuned' for life". However, he continues, "the conclusion is not so much that the Universe is fine-tuned for life; rather it is fine-tuned for the building blocks and environments that life requires." But still, the whole idea is so obviously just another idea of self-validation, in the same way that man thinks god made him in god's image.

Chad,
"It is claimed that these constants exist in such a state of precise equilibrium that any variation to their values would have resulted in a drastically different universe."

So? Things might be even better then. Stuff not crashing into other stuff out there all the time; fewer harmful weather patterns on Earth; a more stable Earth crust.

If conditions on Earth were different, we would be different – perhaps even better, though, with stronger bodies, fewer tendencies to disease and larger brains to figure out answers more easily and completely.

Humans don't do too well in Antarctica or the North Pole; or in the Sahara; or at the bottom of the sea; but many other creatures do. Bacteria thrive virtually everywhere on Earth – from sub-zero temperatures to over 750 degrees F (in hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean), and in widely varying oxygen, pressure and nutrient conditions. They have survived for eons through all sorts of disasters. We get by the best that we can. Life forms adapt – or die out.

November 25, 2012 at 12:21 am |

Chad

@mama k, that the universe is fine tuned for the building blocks of life is broadly accepted as fact. The only issue under debate is whether this fine tuning we observe is design, or chance.

the reason you cant, is that these two encompass the entire range of possibilities. Either there is a design agent, or there is not, there is no third option.

November 25, 2012 at 12:24 am |

Cal

Antony Flew went senile, which was sad, but then he was manipulated by the Christian opportunist Varghese, which enrages.

November 25, 2012 at 12:42 am |

mama k

Chad: "that the universe is fine tuned for the building blocks of life is broadly accepted as fact. The only issue under debate is whether this fine tuning we observe is design, or chance."

I don't have any reason to think that it is by design. There are still too many unknowns and possibilities to try to look at it as if we were the center of the universe.

November 25, 2012 at 12:43 am |

mama k

Chad – in replying to me, you said " is whether this fine tuning we observe is design, or chance."

And in replying to End Religion, you wrote: "Either there is a design agent, or there is not, there is no third option."

I can understand why you wrote the first sentence. As End Religion wrote, your second statement is too restrictive. Because we are talking about what we already observe, we can rule out future possibilities. And since I believe we are both talking about a design agent responsible for creation and this possible initial tuning of the universe, then I think we can also both rule out the case where a design agent was not there at creation, but is here now. Therefore, though, there are still at least three other possibilities with respect to creation and initial tuning of the universe for life across time:

1. a design agent is not here now and never was here;
2. a design agent was here and responsible for creation and universe tuning and is here now; and
3. a design agent was here and responsible for creation and to initially tune the life building blocks of this universe, but that agent is no longer here. It might have jumped through a black hole to go kick-start another universe for all we know.

November 25, 2012 at 1:11 am |

End Religion

chad, I reject that it is either random or intelligent design. I make no argument for what it might be.

November 25, 2012 at 1:14 am |

Chad

@mama k "Therefore, though, there are still at least three other possibilities with respect to creation and initial tuning of the universe for life across time:
1. a design agent is not here now and never was here;
2. a design agent was here and responsible for creation and universe tuning and is here now; and
3. a design agent was here and responsible for creation and to initially tune the life building blocks of this universe, but that agent is no longer here. It might have jumped through a black hole to go kick-start another universe for all we know."

@Chad "Those arent "other possibilities :-) because with respect to the origin and fine tuning of the universe, #2 and #3 are the same (you differentiate them only on the basis of if the external agent is still around now or not).

so, as I said, there are only two options with respect to the origin and fine tuning of the universe: there is a external agent designer involved or not. You have not proposed a third alternative.

=======
@End Religion "I reject that it is either random or intelligent design. I make no argument for what it might be."
@Chad "every now and then I come across atheist statements that really encapsulate the atheist paradox.
The atheist knows it cant be random..
but, the alternative is a designer.

so, they are stuck.

most atheists (mama k, redzoa, GOPer, moby, ME II, etc, etc, ) at this point simply say exactly what @End Religion said, but in a manner that makes it less obvious that they are burying their head in the sand on purpose; namely "we just dont know".

"we just dont know" is equivalent to "I reject that it is either random or intelligent design. I make no argument for what it might be."

November 25, 2012 at 1:09 pm |

Tom, Tom, the Other One

"The atheist knows it cant be random."

Very helpful, Chad. I was wondering if I might be an atheist.

November 25, 2012 at 1:14 pm |

mama k

Chad: "Those arent "other possibilities :-) because with respect to the origin and fine tuning of the universe, #2 and #3 are the same (you differentiate them only on the basis of if the external agent is still around now or not).

Well I would agree, Chad, that against your blanket statement regarding creation and fine tuning if taken together, I can see how you would limit the possibilities to your two options. But I bring up my three just to show the kinds of assumptions you tend to make about things that we know nothing about. In my #3, there is the possibility that the agent that created and set the environment just the right way, and then fled the scene which doesn't say much for then being here as the god of israel for instance. There's also the possibility that the initial creation agent is not the same as one or more agents that would affect (and may continue to affect) environments for life in different ways in different universes. I can come up with ideas all day, Chad – many possibilities that do not lead to the god that man dreamed up for himself. It is easy to do that for things we know nothing about.

November 25, 2012 at 1:30 pm |

Chad

@Chad: "Those arent "other possibilities because with respect to the origin and fine tuning of the universe, #2 and #3 are the same (you differentiate them only on the basis of if the external agent is still around now or not).

@mama k "Well I would agree, Chad, that against your blanket statement regarding creation and fine tuning if taken together, I can see how you would limit the possibilities to your two options. But I bring up my three just to show the kinds of assumptions you tend to make about things that we know nothing about"
@Chad "?? you just acknowledged my statement as correct, yours as incorrect.. The logical conclusion then is that your mistaken attempt to expand the options and later forced recant illustrates your desperate desire to come up with something, anything, that you can point to other than an external agent designer. It shows that the data I presented remains on solid ground, and that you were grasping at straws.
right?"

November 25, 2012 at 1:49 pm |

mama k

No, it's quite simply not grasping at straws, Chad. It should be quite obvious by now that my point is you keep trying to describe something that is all based on theories – unproven things. I was just willing to admit that your black and white "this or that" only fits your limited supposition. And by suggesting the possibility that there might be more than one agent or more than one at different times or one that is no longer, I am simply showing that your whole premise is too narrow to be realistic since it again is in regards to things that are not provable. Think of my ideas, Chad, as a defendant that a lawyer reserves the right to recall later – because rest assured, Chad – once you start to try to defend the validity of the god of israel that man made in his own image, I will be recalling these ideas.

November 25, 2012 at 2:01 pm |

Moby Schtick

@Chad

Saying "We don't know" is honest AND allows for a designer as one possibility. You're a liar as well as any other arrogant fvckwit who says that there MUST be a designer just because "stuff looks nifty."

There is order in the formation of crystals, but nobody designed them. No conscious mind designs snowflakes, but they have order. According to your fallacious reasoning, the fact that snowflakes exhibit a pattern means that there are little fairies carving them out with specific intent or that they are the process of pure randomness, and we know that neither is the case. Same deal for our universe; "We don't know" is the only honest answer regardless of your penchant for fantastic lies.

November 25, 2012 at 2:04 pm |

Moby Schtick

@Chad,

The following quotation of yours is just one example of your sort of absolutely brain-dead lies:

"we just dont know" is equivalent to "I reject that it is either random or intelligent design. I make no argument for what it might be."

"We don't know" means just that, admitting ignorance is not a "rejection" of anything regardless of which to two positions you're stuck on raising as a false dichotomy. "We don't know" means that it might be random or intelligent design or anything else since the speaker/writer is saying "we don't know."

You really should stop the lying, Chad.

November 25, 2012 at 2:07 pm |

End Religion

@chad: I'm curious why you're so upset you can't prove evolution is either chance or intelligent design as you've asserted.

November 25, 2012 at 2:23 pm |

Chad

@Moby ""We don't know" means just that, admitting ignorance is not a "rejection" of anything"
@Chad "so, if you dont reject a designer as one of the live options explaining the origin and fine tuning of the universe, why dont you investigate it?

=====
@End Religion "I'm curious why you're so upset you can't prove evolution is either chance or intelligent design as you've asserted"
@Chad "a designer can't be "proved", but it can be demonstrated to be a reasonable induction.
There are two components to atheistic evolution (distinguished from theistic evolution), genetic mutation and natural selection. Natural selection can be viewed as deterministic, however the environmental changes that create those situations are random as well as the genetic mutations that feed that. Both 100% random.

The mechanisms of evolution—like natural selection and genetic drift—work with the random variation generated by mutation.Factors in the environment are thought to influence the rate of mutation but are not generally thought to influence the direction of mutation. For example, exposure to harmful chemicals may increase the mutation rate, but will not cause more mutations that make the organism resistant to those chemicals. In this respect, mutations are random—whether a particular mutation happens or not is generally unrelated to how useful that mutation would be.

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIIC1aRandom.shtml

November 25, 2012 at 4:01 pm |

Tom, Tom, the Other One

It's actually possible and kind of interesting to watch evolution at work – at work even in mammalian cells. I'm helping a group study a cell line that has been engineered to remove a particular gene. The interesting thing about it is the revertant cell lines that keep cropping up. The original change is reversed by mutations occurring at high frequency, not just reversing the engineered change – that does happen, to be sure – but causing compensatory changes that appear in many places in the knocked out gene restoring function to the gene in quite unexpected ways. The best model of what's happening is constrained randomness – random mutation constrained to a sort of space of all possible functioning variations of the gene.

November 25, 2012 at 4:24 pm |

Chad

by "engineered to remove a particular gene", you are taking about an act of design. right :-)

as a theistic evolutionist, I dont argue against common ancestry (as you are well aware), I'm talking about the great engineer Himself.

November 25, 2012 at 4:53 pm |

Tom, Tom, the Other One

Indeed it was fairly easy for Lee, the Great Designer, to engineer the desired change.

November 25, 2012 at 4:57 pm |

Tom, Tom, the Other One

At any rate, you miss the point. Random mutation allows cells to escape from the engineered change.

November 25, 2012 at 5:07 pm |

Moby Schtick

@Chad

I have "investigated" the design possibility to the degree that I am able. Nothing definitive on that front. We don't know. Are you going to start being honest now and agree that we don't know why the universe is at appears?

November 25, 2012 at 8:05 pm |

Dave Harris

'One of the great mysteries' is why this guy is a 'Tea Party favorite' when he's one of the crookedest insiders in Republican-run Florida. How dumb are those people?

November 24, 2012 at 6:53 pm |

Milton Platt

He's only a politician. He's just trying to cover his own ignorance and try to dance around the subject without losing votes from his chosen audience.

November 24, 2012 at 9:50 pm |

John

"How dumb are those people?"
I assume that's a rhetorical question?

November 25, 2012 at 12:45 am |

martin

Evolution is to Creationism as Gravity is to Levitation
Evidently Rubio hasn't learned kissing evangelical's asses is the kiss of political death

Maybe Rubio wasn't told of or even read in the Jewish Gospels that a day of our time is like a thousand years to God and then again a thousand years our time is like but a day God's time. It's what I dare call "The Dichotomies of Intertwined Cosmological Orders".

November 24, 2012 at 6:31 pm |

Attack of the 50 Foot Magical Underwear

hey, Liony – what meds are you on? Ok, assume 1 day in God time is 1000 years, or whatever scale you appear to be using. So 1 day in the bible is equivalent to 365,000 years. So the 6 days in Genesis is a little over 2 million years – 2,190,000. Throw in a bit more time for leap years and round it to 2.2 million years. Scientists are very clear that the Earth is far, far, far older than 2.2 million years

November 24, 2012 at 7:03 pm |

Navin R. Johnson,

lionlylamb:

"I know we've only known each other four weeks and three days, but to me it seems like nine weeks and five days.
The first day seemed like a week and the second day seemed like five days.
And the third day seemed like a week again and the fourth day seemed like eight days.
And the fifth day you went to see your mother and that seemed just like a day, and then you came back and later on the sixth day.
In the evening, when we saw each other, that started seeming like two days, so in the evening it seemed like two days spilling over into the next day and that started seeming like four days, so at the end of the sixth day on into the seventh day, it seemed like a total of five days.
And the sixth day seemed like a week and a half. I have it written down, but I can show it to you tomorrow if you want to see it."

The Gospels are not a technical manual, Attack of the 50 Foot Magical Underwear. There is room for brevity in its parabolic symmetries. Why are many atheists holding God technically accountable when back in the old days, many folks were unable to count passed their needs let alone speak of such things as there being a universe?

November 24, 2012 at 7:26 pm |

Moby Schtick

lionlylamb, your grammar makes a mockery of your attempt at reasoning. The internet is not a safe place for you and will compound your psychological issues. I'd rather see you get better than worse, so I urge you to get help as soon as possible.

FYI, I am seeing a psychiatrist 8 years now with the same lady doctor. Moby and I am taking my meds unconditionally and without question. I take 15mgs of generic Zyprexa an anti-psychotic. My therapy is what I am doing here and my doctor is impressed with my mental awareness of religious issues and even my views pertaining to the inner and outer and celluar cosmological references I do so try to point others to whenever I feel the urges to promote them. Hardly ever do I tell anyone to believe my words of thought. I put my words out here amid the mobs of massed perceptions for to give people an unusual insight upon my long held beliefs. Hardly ever does anyone comment upon many of my posts and I like it that way! I take such nonposts as their desires to have no disagreements with my words. Sometimes though they do question me and I try really hard to give them a response they can hopefully understand. Moby, I just love being a dreamer of dreamt dreams regarding social issues and religious thoughts and scientific perspectives not commonly understood by the faint-in-heart folks.

November 24, 2012 at 9:37 pm |

Moby Schtick

@lionlylamb

Okay, well take my words to your doctor and see what she says, then. Here they are:

Attempt to communicate your ideas more clearly so that they will be more readily considered by others who might agree or disagree with your opinions if they could decipher your cryptic musings. You seem to have interesting hypotheses, but they're so jumbled and incoherent that nobody can tell what it is you are really saying. Focus. Concentrate on one central idea per post. Do your best to communicate that simply and directly and see what sort of responses you get. Go for direct dialogue and try to learn as much as you teach. Exchange, don't preach. Communicate, don't baffle.

November 24, 2012 at 10:10 pm |

the AnViL

lionlylamb posted: "FYI, I am seeing a psychiatrist 8 years now with the same lady doctor. Moby and I am taking my meds unconditionally and without question. I take 15mgs of generic Zyprexa an anti-psychotic."

schizophrenic..... told ya so.

bong!

November 25, 2012 at 2:28 am |

John

The only planet in our universe that sustains life, how random, planet randomly fitted for humanity's good, everything we need to thrive just happens to be from the earth as a naturally occurring substance. Think about the power of the seed, acorn, who in the heck came up with such a concept. All of humanity thrives because of the power of seeds. How do you get from volcanic molten lava and nothing to all that we see around us because of time. I have never seen time make anything, If you take a dead something and put it in a closed container it produces nothing. The biology term biogenesis =life comes from life really contradicts those who want to believe that life on this earth produced itself. And why do we still have apes and monkeys? And for evolution to work you would have to have two life creatures male and female undergoing the change at the same time and if darwins idea of only the strong survive is true, wouldn't they have been killed because they were different.

November 24, 2012 at 5:45 pm |

midwest rail

Good grief...

November 24, 2012 at 5:50 pm |

Blessed are the Cheesemakers

And exactly how do you know our planet is the only one with intelligent life?

November 24, 2012 at 6:04 pm |

End Religion

The sheer ignorance still surprises me at times...

November 24, 2012 at 6:10 pm |

End Religion

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh0F4FBLJRE&w=640&h=390]

November 24, 2012 at 6:14 pm |

Moby Schtick

You now what, John, just keep on believing as you do. It's pure, simple, childish faith for you all the way, I think. It's a beautiful ignorance, and I can't advise you to change. I actually envy your bliss.

November 24, 2012 at 6:15 pm |

mama k

"All of humanity thrives because of the power of seeds."

Yeah I know and Paul Ryan said his daughter was born just a bean, but that doesn't make it true. My goodness.

November 24, 2012 at 6:27 pm |

Tom, Tom, the Other One

John is a well-spoken young man and deserves a better education than the one his parents, church and school are giving him.

November 24, 2012 at 6:30 pm |

Athy

There's obviously no point in even trying to set this guy straight. His ignorance is astounding.

John, don't doubt or challenge an atheist. The modern day leader of their cult is Dawkins who sits in his big mansion laughing all the way to the bank as these jerks give him millions of $ (in book sales) to have their ears tickled. How can you have a meaningful conversation with someone who just thinks 'im smarter then you' when you give them scientific facts that disproves their faith. (all life is a product of blind chance)

Long before this earth was made whole as it now is, it was but a hodgepodge amid the Great Sea of Nothingness. Thru the advent of timeliness did the hodgepodge earth become made maleable with the intensity of soluble gatherings. In the earth's coming age of firey inclemencies did come to bear; the earthly atmosphere where then came all the seeds brought forth by God and His Sons and Daughters thru their infinitely finite physical beings of ever so very small size. Above wiseness were the sons and daughters of God but not without their Lives being forlorn and yes even perilous for death was a reality with the sons and daughters of God!

November 24, 2012 at 6:55 pm |

Irish Rover

lionlylamb,

A long time ago, when the Earth was green
There was more kinds of animals than you've ever seen
They'd run around free while the Earth was being born
And the loveliest of all was the unicorn

There was green alligators and long-necked geese
Some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees
Some cats and rats and elephants, but sure as you're born
The loveliest of all was the unicorn

The Lord seen some sinning and it gave Him pain
And He says, "Stand back, I'm going to make it rain"
He says, "Hey Noah, I'll tell you what to do
Build me a floating zoo,
and take some of those...

Green alligators and long-necked geese
Some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees
Some cats and rats and elephants, but sure as you're born
Don't you forget my unicorns

Old Noah was there to answer the call
He finished up making the ark just as the rain started to fall
He marched the animals two by two
And he called out as they came through
Hey Lord,

I've got green alligators and long-necked geese
Some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees
Some cats and rats and elephants, but Lord, I'm so forlorn
I just can't find no unicorns"

And Noah looked out through the driving rain
Them unicorns were hiding, playing silly games
Kicking and splashing while the rain was falling
Oh, them silly unicorns

There was green alligators and long-necked geese
Some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees
Noah cried, "Close the door because the rain is falling
And we just can't wait for no unicorns"

The ark started moving, it drifted with the tide
The unicorns looked up from the rocks and they cried
And the waters came down and sort of floated them away
That's why you never see unicorns to this very day

You'll see green alligators and long-necked geese
Some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees
Some cats and rats and elephants, but sure as you're born
You're never gonna see no unicorns

November 24, 2012 at 7:02 pm |

Attack of the 50 Foot Magical Underwear

Hey, John, then why is the vast majority of the Earth's surface not fit for human habitation? Oceans – kind of hard to live in oceans. Antarctica? Big waste of time and effort by your god, don't you think? What's that? You don't think. Hmmm – maybe that's your problem . . .

The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.